


Six Days

by vibishan



Category: Imagine A Day - Rob Gonsalves & Sarah L. Thomson
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 05:23:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8877616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vibishan/pseuds/vibishan
Summary: Glimpses of a strange and shifting world.





	1. Fall Fable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DaisyNinjaGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaisyNinjaGirl/gifts).



The first autumn  
Someone set fire to the trees  
To keep themselves warm.

It was cool and dim  
After someone (else) dropped shade  
On the sun’s birdcage.

(This is why birds sing  
All together each morning:  
To greet their cousin.)

Feathery flames waved  
Their bright gold plumage as they  
Flew from branch to branch.

The trees remember  
The crackling song. They sing it  
Every year again.

Leaves fill the cold sky,  
Sputter-smolder in the gutter  
Drift like golden sparks.

On the first cold day  
Catch one in your open palm.  
Smell hickory smoke.

Crunch them underfoot  
At the crux of wintertime  
And rise like a flare.


	2. Slipstream

The crest of a wave in the sky  
With a flash of white catches your eye  
You feel the air drip  
You gasp and you trip  
In the lake but then come out dry.


	3. Chapter 3

The path branches out like a tree:  
Turn right for home and left for the quay  
Where the river flows down to the sea.

Wind rustles like wings in each belfrey  
Of steeple-point pines as they sway.  
Pointing the path with each tree.

In a shell or the curl of a cala lily  
Murmurs the echo of blood’s flow or sea spray  
While the river flows down to the sea.

Splash; gasp; hush. Blue-veined filigree  
Starts in your heart and wanders away.  
Its path branches out like a tree.

Follow the tolling, the rolling timpani  
Beat in your chest and restless footsteps’ stray  
By the river that flows to the sea.

Let lifelines and laughlines a compass be  
To wonder wander meander all day  
As the path branches out. Like a tree,  
Ere the river flows down to the sea.


	4. Quixotic

There is a language where the word for artist and hero is the same.  
Out in the soft places some people still speak it.  
The word means mostly work – boring, grueling;   
And just enough courage  
To link arms with someone you cannot see  
And trust them to bear your weight  
Or to tile a bridge in your reflections   
Invite the world to walk upon your open face  
Just to come closer –   
And sign your name.


	5. I-Block

A child starts with the blocks.  
The I block  
With smooth grooves and green faded paint  
Smells like I-beam steel  
Feels cool to the touch when chubby finger  
Trace the wooden runnels.

She puts a block on a brick on a block.  
Piles and spires.   
Patience is the only mortar.  
The city will shake when it crumbles  
And she stomps through.  
An M-block meteor the size of a car   
Crashes in the center of bank plaze  
Thanks to a particularly enthusiastic scatter  
Before the meld dissolves under   
Light-up sneakers of destruction.  
The fountain at the center of the plaza  
Is not crushed but it cracks,  
Sprays extravagant complaints.  
Enough to leak through  
And form a gleaming puddle  
Around the blocks.  
Her socks squish.

She peers into the blue pool   
And almost flies away  
But the shallow sheen quivers  
And drips without even shattering  
Too thin yet to catch up the vault of heaven  
Or hoist her aloft  
And she is too easily distracted to push it  
With deliberately unfocused eyes -  
To fold the far distance right up to her fingertips,  
Not yet self-conscious enough to lean on the world  
Without looking at it straight on  
Ignore her weight and fall wrong.

Blocks are half a dream   
To start with;  
They can be anything.   
They were made to be anything and always meant to be made.  
So they can blur the horizon   
More easily even than water  
Which is all one very long twisting stream.

Carelessly, causelessly, stacked up  
And brought low  
And also  
Easy to stow away again  
Chattering their gibberish unordered letters.  
Their memories are as short as hers.

Next year it will be puzzles  
With purposeful placement and pre-drawn paths,  
Wild ways like wild strawberries –  
That is to say  
Sweet and simple to pluck  
A tamed fruit  
Even outside of straight line garden plots.

Puzzles are just maps  
That you learn by their interior curves  
Convext concave   
Concatention of shapes in space  
Matched tooth by tooth together.

By the time she can open a book with no key  
And read it by its own light  
She won’t need toys anymore   
To spin the sky like a top  
And catch it before it falls.


	6. How to Build a Wish

First breathe in, and in, and in -  
You are a mountain.  
A steam train puffs through the close dark  
Tunnel of your throat.  
Breathe until it carries its cargo of the world  
(Golden pollen piled in open cars  
Bales of birdsong tied with cricket chirp twine  
Shafts of sunlight timber-stacked)  
Right through you.

Second, hold it.  
Hold it like you have the hiccups  
(But don’t hiccup. Hitch the hopscotch twitch  
Under your ribs. Slipknot it.)  
Hold it like you want to win a wrestling match  
With all your weight attached.  
Feel it pushing   
Fireflies bumbling against the insides of your fingertips  
Stormclouds in your stomach  
Rooted trees shoving their crowns up under your collarbone.  
Hold it in.

Thirdly you have to find a mirror.  
Frameless works best but mercury glass will do.  
Wave to the girl waiting there  
But do not speak.  
Remember what you are carrying.  
Sidle up to her  
And let her preen a little.  
For best results, flash a fast thumb’s up  
When she shows you something new  
She tried to do with her hair.

When you can hear the seashell heartbeat-hum   
In the backs of your springy knees  
Lean in  
Breathe out  
Soft as a secret  
See the white taste of snow blooming  
On your side and   
Press your warm palm against it  
Until you slide  
Through the softened glass to the other side  
And grasp the bubble you blew  
In the fine film of the mirrorpane.

Take the wish.  
Pinch it delicately, like you’re holding a lockpick  
And draw it back to you.  
Don’t forget to tie it off with the cracks of your knuckles  
And a few eyelashes  
So the lifting air doesn’t slip out.  
Leave its shadow for the mirror-girl to keep:  
A soft lead paperweight, same size, same shape.  
She carves your name on it  
Backwards   
Idly, with a fingernail  
And rests it on her desk   
Next  
To a ship in a bottle  
Like an anchor  
Amongst the warm waves of woodgrain.

**Author's Note:**

> I did try to write a more traditional story for this, but every time I tried to name characters, or give them dialogue, to really make it concrete, it felt like the sweet surreal magic of the book was seeping away. Eventually I decided to try poetry, and it felt like it fit right with the tone of the book. They're certainly about 'ordinary' life in the Imagine a Day world. I really hope you enjoyed my experimental little spin through this world. Merry Christmas!


End file.
